The approaches described in this section could be pursued but are not necessarily approaches that have previously been conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
Network servicing nodes such as server load balancers, application delivery controllers, or traffic managers can facilitate service sessions between a plurality of client devices and a plurality of servers. These servicing nodes can typically balance loads among servers servicing Web documents, voice calls, advertisements, enterprise applications, video streaming services, file transfers, gaming, or any broadband services. In a typical deployment scenario, a client service session terminates in a servicing node that can relay the client service session data to an intended service using a server service session. The servicing node can usually provide additional processing based on service and security policies while relaying the data between the client and the server.
Additionally, in a typical service deployment scenario, the servicing node can choose an Internet Protocol (IP) address to establish the server service session as different from the client network IP address. Thus, the servicing node can use network address translation (NAT) between the client session and the server session. The servicing node can typically be associated with a dedicated NAT address such that a network operator can configure a server side communication channel between the servicing node and the server to forward server session packets to the servicing node efficiently.
The number of clients, servers, services, and active service sessions has been continuously increasing. With the ever increasing demand, networks are expected to keep services available and active service session uninterrupted even when partial network failures are occurring. In order to provide high availability, deployment of dedicated standby servicing nodes has been utilized. However, deployment of idling dedicated standby servicing nodes is not very efficient use of resources. It can be more efficient to provide high availability by distributing service session functionality among a plurality of non-dedicated servicing nodes.